Nicky Morgan vs The Bell Curve.

Schools eligible for intervention will be those which fall below a new ‘coasting’ level for 3 years. In 2014 and 2015 that level will be set at 60% of pupils achieving 5 good GCSEs or an above-average proportion of pupils making acceptable progress.

I am now worried that you haven’t been briefed about the word ‘average’ or the new (laudable) determination by OfQual to ensure GCSE grade inflation is halted. The thing is this: by definition there are only a limited number of places on the bell-curve that can be called ‘Good GCSEs’. You’ve decided to give a pejorative label (implicitly ‘Bad GCSEs’) to about 50% of all grades. Now, instead of Grades 1-4 at GCSE representing any sort of achievement, they’ve been killed stone dead. Nice work…